Towards quarkonium formation time determination

TL;DR

This paper introduces a parametrization method to determine the formation time of quarkonium states by analyzing nuclear absorption effects across a wide range of proton-nucleus collision energies.

Contribution

It presents a novel approach to extract charmonium formation time using a comprehensive set of proton-nucleus data spanning multiple energy scales.

Findings

Effective parametrization of nuclear absorption mechanism.

Potential to accurately determine charmonium formation time.

Applicability across various collision energies.

Abstract

We propose a parametrization of the nuclear absorption mechanism relying on the proper time spent by $c\overline{c}$ bound states travelling in nuclear matter. Our approach could lead to the extraction of charmonium formation time. It is based on a large amount of proton-nucleus data, from nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energies $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=27$ GeV to $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=5.02$ TeV, collected in the past 30~years, and for which the main effect on charmonium production must be its absorption by the nuclear matter it crosses.